


Undone By Force

by Klazora



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, Canon-Typical Violence, Dark Side Rey, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Implied Master/Padawan Relationship(s), Kylo Ren and Rey Are Not Related, Mild Sexual Content, Minor Character Death, Multi, Padawan Rey, Protective Kylo Ren, Rey is hired by the resistance to kill Kylo and ends up as his padawan and then his lover, Reylo - Freeform, Sith Rey, Slow Burn Rey/Kylo Ren
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-02-22 22:05:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13176168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Klazora/pseuds/Klazora
Summary: Raised in a life of involuntary servitude in the capital of Vardos, a planet long occupied by the First Order, young Rey and her rare talent with the Force go largely unnoticed until an unfortunate 'accident' in which the Master of her compound and several others are killed of mysterious and violent circumstances. Delivered into imprisonment until sought after and freed by those who call themselves a 'resistance', Rey is offered safe passage away from the Order and the chance to start a new life, but it comes at a price; she must quickly learn to harness the unique and volatile power she's tried all her life to suppress in order to assist in he assassination of a man she has never met. It does not go as planned. Now, in a place where certain abilities that were previously considered myth and easy to conceal are no longer so, Rey is given a chance lke no other; a chance to become more than she ever thought possible. A padawan. A Sith.(A Reylo Padawan/Master dark!Rey AU)





	1. Arc 1 Act 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an AU in which Rey was dropped off on Vardos, a planet occupied by the First Order, when she was very young, NOT Jakku. It takes place before the end of TFA, so Starkiller base is still a thing and Leia and Poe and Finn are still killin’ it in the resistance (as I imagine they would be).  
> Second; I am a huge fan of Star Wars, but I don’t know everything, as I’m sure you’ll discover. I’m going to make up words for technology I don’t understand, and I’m going to make up names for minor characters that I need for lack of knowing canon technology and canon minor characters. This has been a PSA.  
> There is an original character of mine here, but, as most original characters in fanfiction, they will not last long, so try to tolerate her, as I created her and I love her. I’m not afraid to spoil that.

The loud sounds of machinery, and the heat of molten metal. These were of the first things she remembered; not of the comfort of home, or the familiarity of her parents’ voices. She had been too young to remember, and how sorely it disappointed her. 

However, for most of her life, Rey and Disappointment had been absolute strangers. After all, you can’t be disappointed if you have no expectations, and expectations, Rey had learned, were dangerous in any form, lest you be disappointed. That was a weight Rey did not wish to bear. 

For the longest time, though it seemed as though it was eternity, Rey expected her parents to return. To realize it had been a mistake to abandon, for lack of a kinder word, although Rey was never able to find a euphemism for leaving a five year old girl in the hands of a labor trade and never returning, their daughter on Vardos. 

She had been disappointed. After that, she expected to escape from the clutches of servitude on Vardos; at the first sight of a chance of freedom, she would run. 

Then began the occupation of the planet by a force that called themselves the  _ First Order.  _ She never glimpsed a chance of freedom, let alone the chance to run. However, Rey had only been thirteen years old then. 

By the time she was fifteen, Storm Troopers became more common than citizens on the streets. Screams became more common than the jovial shouts and cheers that once filled the city at night. It didn’t phase Rey as much as it should have; she had only been allowed in the city when she was assigned errands by her Overseer, whomever it would have been at the time. Smog filled as it was, the air of the inner city could be considered fresh to what Rey had to breathe in the compounds periodically. 

One year later, Rey had been sold to work in Kestro, the capital city of Vardos, in a droid production factory, along with several children and many others her age. 

Following the brief and bloody prelude to the First Order’s occupation of Vardos, Rey expected liberation. After all, the First Order had strict laws averse child labor, let alone the euphemized ‘involuntary servitude’ that had become her life’s maxim. 

Rey was disappointed upon discovering that a rather large portion of the droids produced within the same factory were sold to the First Order since the beginning of the occupation; they were apparently more than willing to let it slide. 

For one year, Rey slaved away in the heat and darkness of the production compound, under a crolute man by the name of Y’Andar. However, he rarely interacted with the laborers in the compound, particularly the children; that included Rey, although she assumed that she would turn eighteen in the near future, if she had not already. 

And so hour after hour, day after day, year after year Rey worked, living without such luxuries as contentment, or complacency. 

She expected nothing to change.

 

\- - -

 

A bell rung, shrill and cacophonous, and Rey’s eyes opened slowly but surely. There sleep in the corner of her tear duct blurring her vision. She heard shuffling across the room, the others were leaving their bunks. She had fallen asleep on her back, staring up at the metal bottom of the cot above her. She turned herself slowly to lay on her side, facing the center of the room. Sure enough, several girls and boys had slid from their cots and had begun to dress. 

Rey blinked rapidly, effectively clearing the sleep from her eyes while reaching with a stiff arm to pull the thin blanket from the lower half of her body. She swung her legs out from the bed, barefoot landing on the cold stone floor, though it hardly phased her by now. 

Her cot creaked loudly at the movement, and at the sound a pair of legs swung out from the cot above her, nearly making contact with Rey’s head.

“Taelo...” Rey hissed, her voice quiet and hoarse from unuse. 

The legs swung once before a figure dropped down in front of Rey, merely a silhouette in the dim room.

“Sorry,” she whispered, her voice higher in pitch and far younger than Rey’s. 

Taelo was Twi’lek; she had been captured years ago as a POW of the First Order as a child much younger than Rey had been, and separated from her family. Although Rey never came to know how Taelo had ended up in the hands of Y’Andar, she assumed that this compound was all that the girl had ever known. Although she, like Rey, was not sure of their date of birth, she was nearly three years younger than Rey, but as far as anyone knew, she had been working in the compound for longer than anyone else. 

Rey had been traded to many places on Vardos; waste management plants, ore processing units, and other various factories. She had met many children over the years; children who did not deserve to see what they had seen, and did n0t deserve to live the way they had lived. Rey had spent years at a time in places she could barely remember, and she had grown immeasurably close to those she would never see again. Children were traded throughout the underground labor force on Vardos with undying fervor; in one instance Rey had been woken up to discover she had been sold, for parts, money, or to repay an old debt, she never knew. She was sent off from where she had resided 3 years to a textile factory on the Northern Continent that same day. She had never grown especially attached to any place, thing, or person since then.

Except, the very same hour she arrived at Y’Andar’s droid production plant, there was Taelo. Rey had never seen a Twi’lek girl, let alone one with such a residual passion for life after that which she had lived, and Taelo was more than willing to share her experience with the ‘fresh meat’, as she so affectionately dubbed her. Though Rey was years older and nearly two heads taller than the girl at the time, she had never worked in droid production and Taelo was eager to remedy her naivete, and she stayed by Rey’s side. A year later, she had never left it. 

It couldn’t be helped; Rey had grown inexplicably attached to the girl, although it would have been impossible not to, she owed Taelo far too much. By her, Rey learned that although it hadn’t been explicitly stated, underage laborers were not allowed to leave the compound. She learned that the concept of second helpings at mealtimes was laughable, and that the girls were lucky to work primarily on the upper levels, while the boys slaved away in the basements where the molten metal was transported and cooled.

Rey rarely saw the young male workers, and it was considerable more rare to ever interact with them, save mealtime and the mixed sleeping quarters. One would think that the two groups at that age would be exceptionally eager to intermingle, for certain reasons, but it could never be worth it, Rey knew. These children lived in anticipation of nothing; no family, no life, no foreseeable future. There were no expectations, not anymore. 

 

\-  - -

 

It was dim and dank in Engineering; out of the corner of her eye, she could see an older man working away at analyzing a holographic schematic, but she honed her concentration to her own work. 

A wire sparked and she pulled her hand back, cursing under her breath. She grimaced from the sudden pain, annoyance quickly turning to frustration and anger. She had been attempting to repair this relay for nearly an hour; gear oil turned her hands black, and sweat pooled around her collarbone and at the small of her back. 

She had made herself noticeable now, and she could feel the eyes of the older engineer turn to her, his gaze sweeping her bare shoulders and lower back. She shifted slightly, but returned to work. 

The kriffing neutronic conductor’s shot, she thought suddenly, staring at the mess of wire and metal before her, hands slowly falling to her sides. There was nothing she could have done without the parts to repair it. She exhaled through gritted teeth, standing slowly and rubbing the grime on hands on the already filthy thin fabric of her trousers. 

With a sigh, she knelt down again and lifted the panel, shutting it with a click against the wall. Turning on her heel, she left the engineering bay. 

The soft soles of her shoes padded along the corridor, dim lights above her head reflecting from the metal walls and the rust that encrusted their edges. 

As she walked, she passed the lower molding complexes; she expected that Taelo was working somewhere inside. She stopped outside the door for no particular reason, but heard nothing but the loud hum and distant crashes of the machinery. The heat of the dry air from within wafted from under the iron door, licking at Rey’s bare ankles, and she only imagined how intense the temperatures were beyond it. As she turned away, her eyebrows furrowed slightly; she knew that Taelo would not have access to water until Second Meal, at midday. She silently resolved to have some intended for her when she returned. 

With fleeting selfishness, Rey thought that she was grateful for the skill set that had blossomed from experience; armed with an amature knowledge of technology, the majority of her assignments included repairs and upgrade work with the second lot, roughly two or three dozen other workers, all of them the equivalent of or more than ten years Rey’s senior, and on a payroll. 

Taelo and the others, those far younger than Rey and without experience, were sentenced to manual labor, pushing carts of mechanical waste or shoveling fuel to run the furnaces. It was tiresome, unforgiving work that Rey had been subjected to for nearly a month before Y’Andar realized that he would be hard put to find a more helpful set of hands in engineering for as much as Rey would be compensated; which was nothing. 

Six turns and three levels later, she reached a dead end, a dark iron door at the end of the hall. She stopped ahead of it, curling her fingers against her palm to knock against the metal. The sound echoed loudly, as it always did, although Rey had only been here by choice a handful of times. 

There was a small panel adjacent to the door, on which a red light blinked agonizingly slow. Several moments after she knocked, a small click sounded from the panel and the light turned green. With a quiet hiss, the door’s lock depressurized and it opened mechanically from the inside. 

Rey inhaled, standing up straighter as she entered. 

Y’Andar’s sunken, beady and black eyes rose from his holopad at the sound of her entrance, but only for a moment before he returned to his work. 

“Your designated station is the engineering bay,” he grumbled. 

Y’Andar was a Crolute man that had run this compound since its inception; young enough to be capable of running it, but old enough to have conspicuous distaste for nearly everything else.

Rey nodded. “I was,” she began, “I was repairing the second protonic relay at the communications relay, but-”

“Speak faster.”

Rey cleared her throat, the fingers of her right hand subconsciously rolling into a fist at her hip. “The neutronic conductor in the relay was beyond repair. I cannot  _ fix _ the relay without a second conductor, and I do not have  _ access  _ to a second conductor… as it is.”

Y’Andar glanced up at her with a scowl, but nodded soon after. “I’ll… get one,” he grumbled almost unintelligibly, most probably to himself, but then looked back at her, expression one only describable as ‘poorly hidden disgust’; “Report to Ore Processing.”

 

- - -

 

Taelo had trouble falling asleep that night; Rey realized it even before the girl began to toss and turn in the cot above her, and the tantalizing  _ creak, creak, creak  _ of the metal rods grew louder and increasingly annoyin-

“Taelo!” Rey hissed, hoping that it was loud enough for Taelo to hear but too quiet to wake any of the others in the room. 

The sound stopped, but it was silent for only one euphoric moment before Taelo’s top half appeared from above, upside down. Her eyes were wide, proof that they had no intention of giving in to sleep any time soon, and her normally brilliant blue skin appeared gray in the near pitch-blackness. Her abnormally green eyes reflected what little light there was, nearly startling Rey from their sudden appearance less than a meter from her own face. 

“Yes?” She asked, voice barely below a whisper but tone only too innocent, “Rey?”

“Shut up.”

Taelo nearly laughed, and went to cover her mouth before realizing that she needed two hands to hold her in the precarious position of dangling over the side of her raised cot. 

“I can’t sleep.”  

“I can tell.”

With surprising agility, Taelo released her grip on the metal rod above, and gripped the underside of her own bunk frame before swinging her legs out from the side of it and landing nearly silently at the base of Rey’s own bunk before flashing the much older girl a complacent smile. 

Rey squinted at her in the dark. “You’re sitting on my feet.”

“Sorry…” Taelo shifted slightly to the side of the bed, leaning her torso and head against the cool stone of the wall. 

With a muffled groan, Rey slid back slightly in her cot, propping herself up on her elbows. Taelo remained expectant, continuing to stare. 

Rey sighed silently, reluctantly pulling herself up into a sitting position, waiting. Taelo moved to kneel, bony knees digging into the thin mattress. 

“Show me?” She posed it as a question, “Everyone else is asleep.”

Rey raised an amused eyebrow in question before realizing what she meant. She frowned. 

“Just once,” Taelo whispered, “Show me the magic again.”

Magic. Rey couldn’t help but scoff at the word, although she could never think of

a better term for it. 

As long as Rey could remember, she could… do things. Only small things, mind, but it entertained Taelo like nothing else, her little mundane tricks. 

“Oh- here,” Taelo whispered suddenly, and Rey looked up from her lap. 

The Twi’lek reached into the the side of the fitting bandeau garment covering her chest and pulled out a small object that had been held there. 

Rey narrowed her eyes to make out the shape of in through the dark. It looked as though it was only a cube, but upon closer inspection she noticed that the two horizontal halves of it were connected by a single gear. 

“It spins,” Taelo explained, voice even below a whisper, staring at the object in her hands, no bigger than a piece of fruit, as though it had power of its own.

She held it out to Rey, who slowly took it into her own palm. “Where did you get this?” Her eyes stayed on the object. 

Taelo only shrugged. “I found it,” she explained, “Well, I borrowed it. Without permission? It’s just a toy…”

Rey’s gaze snapped upwards. “You  _ stole  _ this?” She asked incredulously, although the amused smile creeping onto her expression gave away her true feelings.

“So?” Taelo asked after a moment of silence, nodding at Rey in a gesture of encouragement, but Rey only rolled her eyes. 

“Give me a second,” she whispered, returning her attention to the toy in her hands. 

It was black; if the shiny metal of its surface had not reflected what little light there was, its outline could nearly disappear in the darkness. Rey ran the pad of a fingertip along its angled edges. 

It was cool to the touch; corporeal, yet unliving. Manipulatable. When Rey closed her eyes, the image of the object was still clear, as though it was never removed it from her gaze. 

She willed the cube to rise,  _ wanted _ it to move. The imagine she envisioned fled from her thoughts and turned to energy that seemed to manifest in her very hands. 

It was only when Taelo inhaled sharply that Rey opened her eyes. 

The cube was suspended in the air, nearly two feet from the palm of Rey’s hand. Taelo stared at it with wide eyes, but Rey only frowned. She willed the two halves of the cube to spin, one clockwise and the other opposite. It did so. 

“Amazing,” Taelo whispered to herself. 

Rey’s frown deepened. She rarely ever agreed to partake in this, except when Taelo asked or to indulge her own curiosity. She did not understand why she could do this, and she doubted that she ever would, but there was one thing she knew for certain; it would bring her nothing but trouble. She would be taken away, or killed, if it was discovered that she controlled this… this  _ magic _ . 

Still, she could not help but wonder. Wonder the purpose of the power, wonder it’s  _ extent _ , what she could do if her intentions were not nearly as ambiguous. She stared at the cube that remained hanging in midair by her will, by her _ power. _ The same power that she was sure could heal, could kill, could build, could  _ destr- _

Taelo gasped suddenly, and Rey’s eyes snapped open and found herself staring into Taelo’s, which were suprisingly wide, and full of… fear. What?

Taelo’s gaze flickered downward. And Rey’s followed it. Brought harmlessly to the blanket between them by gravity, was the cube.  

It had shattered. Rey hadn’t even noticed. Taelo seemed to be holding her breath, but Rey ignored her as she reached down with a tentative hand, brushing her fingers through the half dozen fragments. She hadn’t even meant to. In spite of Taelo and everything, Rey smiled. She had been right. 

“Rey-” Taelo made herself known again, and Rey looked up at her, and rapidly shook her head. 

“I-I’m sorry,” Rey admitted quickly, furrowing her eyebrows at the mess she had created, “I didn’t mean to break it.”

There was a pause, and then Taelo began to move. “It’s fine,” she managed a shrug, but there was an unmistakable tremble to her voice, “It’s fine, it’s just a toy.”

Without another word, Taelo disappeared silently into the bunk above, leaving Rey to stare at her lap, and the numerous shards of metal that had become of the curious object Taelo had brought to her, and she was hit with the sudden realization that she had not broken the object consciously. She had allowed it to happen, for she had allowed the thought of destruction to become a reality, the energy she felt within her, like an animal inside a cage, allowed to manifest. Rey was sure that was even more dangerous, and Taelo had known. Rey remembered the emotion in her eyes. 

Taelo fell asleep eventually. Rey did not.        


	2. Arc 1 Act 2 Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey realizes that they're all in more trouble than she realizes. 
> 
> Rey and Taelo attempt to de-stress with an illegal field trip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, it's short, just wanted to get it out there.

Weeks passed for Rey and the compound, and overtime the incident with the cube was all but forgotten. Rey refused to make a show of her power since, for her own sake if not her sanity’s. That, and Taelo never asked. 

There were greater problems to be addressed, in Rey’s opinion. 

Two weeks before, a boy disappeared. That was, however, a common euphemism for ‘sold’, as if it was easier to pretend that the loss was a simply a mystery than the even simpler truth, if not the fact that everyone was grateful that it was not them that was taken. 

It was night, the only indication the lack of sunlight, although Rey had no way of knowing whether it was nearly dawn or if she had only just fallen asleep minutes before. It was the simple click of a doorknob that woke Rey- she had always been a light sleeper, shockingly- the doors in the compound were locked every night from the outside, to keep the underage workers from wandering the compound after hours. No one ever disturbed them while they slept, and Rey was confident enough that this was true because no one was ever quiet enough to not wake her. 

Her eyes opened at the sudden and unfamilar sound, wrenched from a dreamless sleep. Even in the dark, she could see the door swing open silently, and several silhouettes. Rey was reasonably sure that she was the only one that had been awoken, but if they carried on they would surely wake every child in this room, she thought. 

There were two or three of them, she couldn’t be sure. One of them spoke, in a hushed whisper that was not nearly as quiet as it needed to be. Still, she could hear only bits and pieces. 

One of the older ones… boss says… in exchange...quick and quiet or… might try to help…

Fear was an emotion that had grown increasingly alien to Rey over the years, but it tugged at her chest now. 

They were going to take someone. 

She heard one of the children roll over in their bunk, but she knew they were not truly awake, or they would remain perfectly still, as Rey was. She resisted the urge to open her eyes, and kept her breathing shallow and silent, although in hindsight, there was no reason for doing so. If it had been her they had come for, it would not have mattered. 

There was silence then, a deafening, ominous silence filled only by the quiet breaths of those asleep until hell broke loose. There was noise, impossible to stifled

It was impossible to resist the temptation; Rey opened her eyes and turned her neck. The two figures were no doubt men by their stature, and had simultaneously lunged at a cot against the wall adjacent to Rey’s own. 

A scream rose and was quickly muffled, by a hand, or fabric, or something. Rey froze, but her eyes remained open. Every person in this room was now awake, she was sure of it; no sound came from any bunk, as everyone had grown still, pretending not to breathe. 

There was a thud, and a string of curses, and then a form was lifted from the surrounding cot, and Rey recognized it. 

It was a Dathomirian male; Rey could barely make up the shape of the horns jutting from his skull in the darkness, and it seemed he would rather die than go quietly. Although he was years younger and smaller than Rey, he was stronger, kicking out with his legs and clawing wildly at his assailants, but he could not overpower the three men that seemed just as intent on their goal as he was on his. 

One of the men groaned suddenly through gritted teeth. “Damn brat,” he muttered. 

Rey could help, she thought suddenly. If she really wanted to, she could save him. She was sure of it. She defend them both; she had faced against worse odds than two against three. Then logic told her that it would do nothing but delay the inevitable, and condemn herself. 

She watched. As the group grew closer, moving slowly but surely towards the only exit to the room, she saw his face. Yellow and black patterns shone in the pale light of the moon, and his black pupils darted frantically about the room until landing on Rey. His eyes widened when they met her own, and Rey knew that she could not close them and pretend. She held his gaze for seconds that felt like an eternity. 

She could save him. She felt the power within her, swelling, at her beck and call. She could defend them both, she thought. She knew she could kill the men, if she wanted to. She  _ could _ , because she wanted to. 

The door shut, the sound echoing easily in the small space. They were gone. It was over. Nearly everyone released the breath they didn’t know they were holding; a collective conscious, a collective fear. Someone sniffed, the only proof that any other emotion ravaged them. Rey’s eyes were wide, but she refused to move. She was not sure what had just happened. Weakness? Selfishness, or common sense? 

She was pulled from thought by movement in the corner of her peripheral; a hand, curling over the side of the bunk above Rey’s own. It was dark, but she could see the pale blue tinge of palm: Taelo. 

Rey pulled her arm from beside her and reached out, combining her fingers with Taelo’s before pressing their palms together. Her hand was sweaty, but Rey didn’t mind. She wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that.

The next morning, when the sun shone through the transom windows below the ceiling, the same cot was there. It was empty, its thin blankets thrown carelessly over its metal frame. Rey pretended not to notice, as did everyone. Red stained the stone floor feet from her cot in unmistakable droplets. 

Rey pretended not to notice that, too. 

- - -

 

The next day, Rey got the neutronic conductor she needed to fix the relay in engineering. She refused to buy into coincidental explanations. 

To her horror, the trend continued. Days later, there’s a chain reaction in the molding complex’s fuse system. She wasn’t there to witness it, but Taelo recounted that it was one of the brightest lights she had ever seen. Production was shut down for the entire day, until the next morning, when the parts had appeared to repair it. It took Rey and four other engineers six hours to complete the task, slaving away in the intense heat of the complex. 

That evening at Third Meal, Taelo complained to Rey that the second and third girls she worked with in the complexes every day have not been there, and with only one adult replacement, she has nearly twice the normal workload. Rey had listened intently with a mask of sympathy, nodding when it seemed appropriate, but she was far too occupied to pay attention. 

They were trading children in exchange for parts. Malfunctions continued to occur, it seemed more and more often, and each morning, it seemed that more and more bunks were left vacant with no explanation; at this rate, Y’Andar would be lost of his bargaining chips, as sick as it was to refer to children in that way. 

“Are you listening?” Taelo asked, eyebrows furrowed, and Rey was relieved to see that she was not angry.

- - -

 

Days later, Rey returned to the bunkroom to find that Taelo had arrived there first. That was odd, as laborers in the molding complexes normally worked a much longer day than herself, sometimes by hours. 

Taelo was laying in her bunk, on her back, but it was too far from the ground for Rey to see inside of it. Rubbing her forehead with a palm of her hand, Rey sighed, and leaned on the metal beam of their shared bunk. 

“Was there another breakdown, in the complex?” She asked, eyebrows furrowed, smiling nonetheless of Taelo’s seemingly good fortune.

Her smile fell when Taelo sat up with surprising speed, startling Rey, but was most startling was-

“My face,” Taelo spoke first, seeing Rey’s shocked expression, and her voice grew quieter as she added, “I know.”

There was a bruise, a nasty, sprawling bruise, but Rey could barely get a proper look before Taelo turned away, only allowing Rey to see the other side of her face. Rey frowned. “Who did this to you?” She asked softly, and one would never think by her tone that she would immediately seek revenge on the poor soul that embodied the answer.  

Taelo only shook her head, averting her eyes from Rey’s scrutinizing gaze. “It was an accident,” she paused, “With a rotator cuff, on a molding transducer.”

Rey took a step back, and crossed her arms over her chest, a semi-threatening gesture if her expression had not softened. “Transducers don’t have rotator cuffs, Taelo.”

A pause, Taelo searching Rey’s face out of the corner of her eye. 

“This one did.”

With that, Taelo turned completely away, facing the wall with her back to Rey, and it was silent between them for only a moment. 

“You don’t have to tell me,” Rey gave in eventually, but shuffled around to the other side of the bed to- it was no use; Taelo stubbornly turned with her, giving Rey a constant view of only her back. 

Rey signed, resisting the temptation to roll her eyes. “I only want to look at it,” she paused, and added, “Please.”

She had succeeded; Taelo slowly turned to face Rey, still reluctant to meet her eyes as her face was examined more thoroughly. 

A nasty, sprawling bruise, Rey thought. It spread from Taelo’s lower jaw to her temple, turning her delicate blue skin a startling juniper green. 

Rey reached a tentative hand into the space between herself and Taelo before meeting the girl’s eyes in search of consent, and Taelo nodded before Rey reached further and brushed the pads of two fingertips along Taelo’s cheekbone. 

She winced, and Rey pulled away. Then, she noticed one minute detail that she had missed previously: Taelo’s eyes, puffy and red. 

Rey felt the emotional form of bile begin to pool in her chest before pushing it back where it came from.

“You’ve cried,” she noted absentmindedly. 

“Well yeah,” Taelo replied almost immediately, “It  _ hurt _ , didn’t it?”

Then, despite everything, Taelo laughed, a sudden sound that started Rey before it truly relaxed her, though it lasted only a few seconds. 

Taelo sighed, the ghost of a smile playing on her lips before it fell, and she looked at Rey with a surprisingly solemn expression. 

“I… did get hit with a rotator cuff,” she explained, “And it did hurt, but…”

Rey said nothing, knowing she would continue on her own. She settled with watching the way that Taelo fiddled with the excess fabric of her trousers. 

“But the cuff snapped and… and the Molding Chief was so angry,” Taelo’s voice cracked, and she turned away from Rey again, hiding that side of her face, “He said we only had two replacement cuffs left before…”

She trailed off. Rey frowned, and opened her mouth to speak before Taelo continued. “He would send me back early if... if I wouldn’t tell Y’Andar.”

“I think,” Rey exhaled, trying her hardest not to be angry, not at Taelo, “You made the right choice.”

Taelo said nothing, but slowly reached up with two fingers and touched her temple softly, dragging them down the bruised skin until her chin. Rey watched, torn between rage and sorrow at the sight. 

“Is it ugly?” She asked, turning to meet Rey’s eyes. 

Rey managed a small smirk. “I like it; makes you look intimidating.”

Taelo gave her a sad smile, but said nothing, save for a near silent “yeah…”

There was a much longer bout of silence this time, Rey watching Taelo’s face carefully and the latter staring off at the stone wall opposite her. There was nothing but hopelessness there, Rey realized, under all that positivity she always managed to display, and that was all that was there now: hopelessness. 

She thought of something, something that might help. Mother of Moons, this was a horrible idea, but she had thought of it, and now it was too late to talk herself out of it. 

“Let’s leave the compound tonight,” she said suddenly, immediately earning herself Taelo’s attention. 

Taelo’s eyes widened, and she shook her head furiously. “Y’Andar would hunt us down when they realize we’re gone, we would be discovered first thing in the morning-”

“We would be back in time!” Rey told her, “In our beds by the time the sun first rises.”

She deserved this, Rey thought, Taelo deserved to see outside the walls of this compound for once in her life.

Taelo evidently did not think so. “No,” she answered, but there had definitely been a pause of hesitation before she had spoken, and that was all that Rey needed to push on. 

“Don’t you want to see outside?” She couldn’t help but smile, exciting herself by the mere thought, “The sky?”

Taelo frowned. “It will be night,” she explained, “There  _ is _ no sky.”

Rey nearly laughed. “There are stars,” she told her, “I’ve seen them.”

Taelo knew what stars were, and she certainly knew that the sky still existed although you could not see one in the darkness of night. At least, Rey assumed she did. 

Taelo looked over Rey’s expression after she spoke, presumably to detect any lie she may have tried to feed her, but found none. She narrowed her eyes slightly. “We can’t leave,” she explained, and Rey nearly groaned before she continued, “Every door in this corner of the compound is locked from the outside. 

“I can make the locks open.”

Taelo looked confused for a moment, mouth slightly ajar, before all expression dropped from her features. “With magic,” Taelo confirmed, nodding, and Rey did not know at all what she was thinking, so she only returned the gesture. 

“We should,” Rey declared, leaning forward slightly and putting her weight on the bunkpost.

“We shouldn’t.”

“We  _ should _ .”

“We  _ shouldn’t _ ,” Taelo told her, but made brief eye contact with Rey before continuing, “But we will.”

Rey smirked, tapping her fingers on the metal bunk post in victory, but couldn’t speak again before Taelo interrupted her. 

“The others will see us leave,” she noted, but after Rey’s dubious expression, “They won’t say anything.”

Then Taelo smiled, a  _ real _ smile, and Rey realized she had succeeded. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 is nearly done. Leave a comment and let me know how I'm doing! Or a kudos, if you're lazy and if you liked it, of course.


	3. Arc 1 Act 2 Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey and Taelo go on a little adventure and have a little bonding time

The last shred of moonlight disappeared from the room, casting all of the bunks into nearly complete darkness. It’s silent, save for and the sound of those shifting in their cots. 

Rey waited minutes until the chorus of breathing became even, and silently slid out from her cot, bare feet landing silently on the stone floor. Once she was sure that she had not attracted any attention, she stood. 

Taelo was lying on her back, hands folded over her stomach and body stock straight in an almost comical way; when Rey appeared beside her raised bunk, she nearly jumped, startled. 

As soon as her eyes met Rey’s they widened slightly, and she shot up into a sitting position so quickly Rey was afraid the sudden creak of the metal bed posts would wake the entire compound. Luckily, no one stirred. 

Rey narrowed her eyes slightly and raised a finger to her lips before gesturing with the other hand for Taelo to climb down to the ground. Once she had landed, Rey turned her back to her and advanced on the thick iron door that was the single exit to the room. It was locked, of course, but Rey knelt down beside the handle, feeling Taelo’s presence somewhere close behind her, watching. 

Rey focused her attention on the locked handle and began reaching toward it; she closed her eyes.  _ Open _ . 

The click was near silent, but loud enough for Rey to know that she was successful. She reached out further, curling her fingers around the cold iron of the door handle and pulled slowly. 

“You did it,” Taelo breathed when it opened smoothly at the action, and Rey stood and pulled it open enough for them to fit through, not wanting to cause a draft in the room. 

Taelo followed suit as she ducked into the hallway; it looked incredibly different at night, the normally dim corridor nearly pitch black, save for a flickering red emergency light near its end. 

“How do we get out?” Taelo asked

She still spoke in a hushed whisper, although Rey was sure that it was no longer necessary; Rey could not hear or see anyone, and although she did not know how, she knew that there was no one near. 

“This way,” Rey began to move, assuming that Taelo would follow.

The two moved at a pace barely under a run down the corridor, nothing to prove their presence but the near silent sound of their footsteps. Taelo followed close behind Rey, until they reached a short, red door that appeared gray in the darkness. 

Taelo narrowed her eyes in confusion.“What’s this?”

Rey told her that it was the Emergency Escape. 

“This complex has emergency escapes?”

Rey told her that it must, or she would not currently be opening one.

“Won’t an alarm sound?” Taelo whispered. 

After a moment, Rey pulled it open with a jerk, and everything was silent. 

“No,” she answered. 

The Emergency Escape was smaller than a usual door, and Rey had to climb completely through it headfirst before Taelo could follow her. 

The air was cool, surprisingly so, and there was more light outside. They must be high up, Rey thought, the wind was loud, whipping through the towering buildings. She stood on a small platform, only a meter by even less, with a ladder adjacent on the compound’s solid metal wall. Rey turned and ducked down under the railing to stand on the top rung of the ladder, and then stepped up to a higher one to watch Taelo climb onto the platform. 

Her legs came through the escape door first, and then she grabbed onto the opposite railing to pull herself through. When she found her standing balance, she looked around for the first time; that’s all she did, look, and then tilted her head back and stared at the sky. 

She smiled, a stupid, excited smile, and for a moment she looked as young as she really was. 

“You can’t see much,” Rey noted from above, “The complexes are too tall here.”

She was right, there wasn’t much, only a bit of space nearly 10 meters above the concrete alleyway between their compound and another. Taelo didn’t seem to hear her, but turned around again to look down the alleyway.

At least, until the noticed Rey several feet above her on the ladder, watching her. Her eyes widened slightly when she noticed how high they really were, or the state of the ladder, or both. 

“It holds me,” Rey told her, reading her expression, “It will hold you.”

Taelo looked unsure, and elected to only watch from against the rail as Rey pulled herself up the ladder. It creaked with her every step, the weak and ancient metal seeming to bend under her weight. The wind blew her loose bangs around her face, the rest of her hair tied in a bouncing knot at the nape of her neck. 

It was a slow and painstaking ascent, and it seemed that the rungs of the ladder grew weaker with each steady movement until Rey reached the next platform, jutting out from the next level’s Emergency Escape. She ducked under the rail and leaned over it to look below. 

“What if I fall?” Taelo queried as soon as they made eye contact. 

Rey paused for a moment. “It held me, it will hold you,” she repeated, although truthfully she did not know what would happen if Taelo fell, and she did not want to think about it. 

She watched as Taelo looked away, mumbled something, and nodded several times to herself before grabbing on to both sides of the metal ladder and stepping up to the first rung. 

She moved slowly, tantalizingly so, and soon Rey was watching her not with concerned entertainment but with deadpan boredom. 

“Taelo,” she called over the rail. 

Taelo stopped, and looked up, as if she could not climb at the same time as she spoke. “Do not ask me to go faster,” she told her.

That was that. Rey waited until Taelo reached the platform before turning to the next, equally rickety ladder. 

Taelo furrowed her eyebrows before speaking to Rey’s back. “Where are we going?”

Rey told her they were going to the roof. 

“I didn’t know the compound had a roof.”

Rey hung her head, exhaling. She told Taelo that every building has a roof. 

“Well obviously,” Taelo rolled her eyes, “I didn’t know we could go up there.”

“Then you should have said that,” Rey muttered as she began to climb, “So I wouldn’t assume that you didn’t know that all buildings  _ ended _ .”

Taelo didn’t hear her, so Rey continued to climb. The compound was taller than she thought it would be, Rey thought, they were it must be twenty levels, or more. Thank the gods she didn’t have to climb twenty ladders; she was sure one would give way eventually, and she would surely fall. What would happen if she died?

The sudden question startled her, and she pushed it from her thoughts. She looked down, between the metal ladder and her body, surprised to find that Taelo had already begun to climb. 

“I want to get to the roof,” she called up when she noticed that Rey was watching her.

Rey did not want to shout, and she knew that anything she said would be lost to the wind, so she looked away, pausing her ascent to look around. 

It was easy to say that Rey had never been this… high up, to put it simply. The wind, whipping through the towering compounds and complexes, tousled her hair and tugged at the loose fabric of her trousers. 

It was far from a picture city skyline, but it was different. Rey could see down into the alley and into the near silent street nearby, lit dimly by lights that she couldn’t see; buildings much shorter than her own, but many more much taller. It really  _ wasn’t  _ much, but she thought that once she reached the top that there must be something different, something more. 

_ Crack.  _ The sound from below, echoed throughout the alleyway, easily reaching Rey’s own ears. 

A scream followed immediately, even louder. 

Rey’s eyes widened and she nearly slipped from the wrung as she whipped around sideways. The noise that came from her mouth next was something a mix between a sigh and a growl. 

Taelo was several meters below her, no lower than where she had stood before, and was looking up at Rey with nothing short of a smile on her face. 

Rey looked at her with nothing short of incredulity. 

“I thought you fell!” She nearly yelled, “Why did you scream?”

Taelo shrugged, prompting Rey to roll her eyes. “The metal snapped,” she explained, “It was startling.”

A moment later, a distant clang signalled them that the dismembered metal bar had hit the ground below. Rey ignored it, and turned back, continuing to climb. 

Several minutes and several flights later, Rey reached the top; she threw one leg over the concrete barrier and then the other, perched briefly on the ledge before jumping down, onto the roof itself.

Her gaze swept the surrounding area, as it was new to her. She stood on perhaps one hundred square meters of flat concrete, surrounded by the enclosing concrete barricade that stood a mere half a meter high, not nearly enough to stop someone from stumbling over it, if they were to. 

Past the roof itself was- it was beautiful, from what Rey could see. Dissimilar to the simple view of alleyway and compound walls she had experienced at first, Rey was sure that she could see on for miles. 

Many buildings, and many windows were dark, nearly camouflaged in the blackness of the night, but there was a soft glow surrounding what looked like skyscrapers in the distance, scattered windows backlit by lights within.

Above them, the night sky, dotted with distant stars whose radiance was blurred by the thick blanket of smog covering the city. The First Order had an unsurprising disregard for environmental regulations, after all. 

Distracted briefly by the echoing sound of metal, Rey turned to see Taelo reach the concrete barrier of the roof, throwing her leg over its height as Rey did, breathing heavily. “I… haven’t done…” she huffed, pushing her hands on her knees briefly once she was standing on the roof, “You know what… just give me a second.”

After several moments of much needed rest, Taelo recognized her surroundings. “Woah,” she breathed, turning in a slow circle until her eyes landed on Rey, who was several meters away, lying on the floor… ceiling. Roof?

Taelo was quiet as she went to join her, sitting herself down on the cool stone before sprawling out, limbs in all four directions, while Rey bent her legs slightly, folding her hands over her stomach. For a few seconds, they were silent, until Rey spoke. 

“There were so many stars,” she began, staring up at the gray expanse above them, “When I worked on the South continent.”

Taelo glanced over at her, but then looked back up. “Was it nice there?” 

Rey shrugged, although she knew that Taelo couldn’t see the gesture. “It was… warm,” she explained, “And during the day, the sky was blue.”

The revelation made Taelo sit up, propping herself up on her elbows and staring at Rey, eyes wide. “ _ Blue _ ?” 

Rey nodded, meeting Taelo’s eyes. 

“Well what did it look like?”

Rey resisted the urge to answer ‘the color blue’ and instead opted for “The color of your skin…. when it’s clean, of course.”

It sounded harsh, but Taelo beamed, laughing softly at the thin layer of grime and machine oil coating her feet, hands and arms. “It sounds nice,” she agreed. 

They laid there for a few moments longer, bathing in the peace of the quiet city air, the distant sound of speeders and the city miles away.

“Rey?” Taelo’s soft voice broke the silence. 

“What?”

“Do you think you’ll ever be free?”

The question caught Rey completely off guard; her eyes opened wide, and she sat up nearly all the way. 

“What kind of question is that?” She asked loudly, the paused, her voice softening, “Of course I want to be free.”

“That’s not what I asked,” Taelo answered softy after a moment. 

Rey sighed. “I think I’ll be free.”

A longer moment of silence passed before Taelo took in a breath. 

“I don’t want to be free.”

This time, Rey remained still, laying again on the cool cement. Composed, she glanced over at Taelo, who had turned her head to the side and was facing the opposite direction. 

“This is no way to live, Taelo,” Rey responded cooly, frowning. 

Taelo sighed, the sound barely audible. “I have no family,” she explained, “No friends; I have no… I don’t have anyone.”

Rey’s frown deepened, and she sat up, turning towards Taelo. “Look at me.”

Reluctantly, Taelo turned to face Rey, and even in the dismal light on the rooftop Rey could see the tears beginning to form in the corners of Taelo’s eyes. 

“You’re wrong” Rey told her, “You have me.”

Taelo began to shake her head and opened her mouth to speak but Rey continued. “If we’re fr- when we are _free,_ ” she began with intensity, “I will take you with me, and we will _leave_ this planet.”

There was silence then, extending for nearly a minute before Taelo shifted back to her side. “Okay,” her voice was soft, but this time not nearly as somber, and Rey could practically hear the smile in her voice when she continued; “Will you take me to see a blue sky?”

“Of course I will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the calm before the storm, I guess

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly have no idea if this is good or not so *praying hands emoji* leave a comment or a kudos if ur lazy like me. I also can't honestly say when the next update will be, chapter 2 IS almost done but i like to release chapters in constant proximity so y'all know when to expect an update


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